Port Gamble S’Klallam

Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe cleans up Point Julia, Port Gamble Bay

The Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe has spent 2014 focused on improving the health of Port Gamble Bay, especially Point Julia, where tribal members regularly gather to exercise their treaty rights.

The tribe has been working through a list of more than 400 items for removal, including old creosote pilings and derelict fishing gear, on the beaches north and south of Point Julia. Also on the removal list is a large rusting barge north of Point Julia, a dilapidated pier and an old concrete boat launch, all of which were removed this fall. (more…)

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Marine survival research focuses on juvenile salmon, preferred prey

Nisqually tribal staff seine for juvenile fish in the Nisqually estuary.
Nisqually tribal staff seine for out-migrating chinook in the Nisqually estuary. Beach seining for juvenile salmon is one of the ways fisheries managers plan to research marine survival rates.

Fisheries managers studying poor ocean survival of salmon are concentrating their research on juvenile fish and their preferred prey.

Several tribes are collaborating on studies slated to begin in 2014 as part of the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project. The Tulalip, Nisqually, Port Gamble S’Klallam, Lummi, Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle tribes are among the collaborators that have signed on to sample zooplankton throughout the region.

Zooplankton and ichthyoplankton are the preferred prey for juvenile salmon. Researchers want to find out whether prey availability has changed in the Salish Sea during the critical period of juvenile salmon development, leading to poor growth and survival. (more…)

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Port Gamble S’Klallam transfers juvenile coho to Port Gamble Bay net pens

A juvenile coho plunges into the Port Gamble net pens. Click on the picture for more photos.

A quarter million juvenile coho salmon took a quarter-mile ride through a 4-inch pipe when the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe recently transferred the young fish from shore to the tribe’s floating net pens in Port Gamble Bay.

The fish came from the Washington Department Fish and Wildlife’s George Adams Hatchery near Shelton. Arriving in a tanker truck, the fish first were transferred into a 2,300-gallon fiberglass holding tank, then flushed through the pipe into the net pens. (more…)

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